27 March 2002
Powell Says "We Must Find a Solution" in Mideast
(Secretary interviewed on National Public Radio March 27) (2580)
Following is a transcript of a March 27 interview of Secretary of
State Colin Powell on National Public Radio, in which he answered
questions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iraq and Afghanistan:
(begin transcript)
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
March 27, 2002
INTERVIEW OF SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN L. POWELL BY LIANE HANSEN OF
NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO
March 27, 2002 Washington, D.C.
MS. HANSEN: To discuss these events in the Middle East, as well as the
Bush Administration's plans in Afghanistan and Iraq, we're joined now
by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who is on the phone from his
office at the State Department.
Thank you very much for speaking with us, Mr. Secretary.
SECRETARY POWELL: You're quite welcome, Liane.
MS. HANSEN: Given what's happening today, another suicide bombing in
Israel, the news out of the Arab summit is not very heartening, what
reasons do you have to be optimistic about lasting peace in the Middle
East?
SECRETARY POWELL: Well, you have to believe that there is a solution
to this terrible situation. We can't keep going with bombs going off,
as we have seen again on this holiday eve, killing innocent people. We
must find a solution. There is some heartening news coming out of the
Arab summit. Crown Prince Abdullah put down a positive statement that
the Arab nations should try to seek normal relations with Israel. So
this is an important statement from a very important Arab leader, and
we'll build on that, and we'll build on the work that General Zinni is
conducting on behalf of the United States, on behalf of the parties,
to get them into the Tenet work plan.
As your listeners may know, the Tenet work plan is the means by which
both sides start to take specific actions to bring into effect the
cease-fire and start to rebuild confidence between the two sides. And
then, as you go through the Tenet work plan, you reach what's called
the Mitchell process, reflecting the work done by former Senator
George Mitchell last year. And it is that Mitchell process that
increases the confidence-building activity between the two sides,
leading to negotiations under UN Resolutions 242 and 338,
Land-for-Peace, so we can find a solution to this.
Now, it's easy to become depressed with the events of the day, but you
have to keep going ahead and finding reasons for hope and optimism,
because both sides are trapped in a situation where violence begets
violence, and we've got to get out of it.
MS. HANSEN: In order to break that logjam, the United States is taking
a role. But President Bush, for example, wanted Israel to lift its
condition on allowing Yasser Arafat to travel to Beirut. Vice
President Cheney personally called Ariel Sharon to request that, and
it didn't happen. But the United States is playing a role. What
leverage -- how much leverage -- does the United States have with
Israel, and what is the nature of that leverage? SECRETARY POWELL:
Well, I also spoke to Prime Minister Sharon about letting Chairman
Arafat attend the summit, and we had two conversations. Israel is a
democratic nation with a Prime Minister elected by the people of the
country. And we certainly do have influence as the best friend Israel
has in the world, but we can't dictate to Israel with respect to its
own self-interests and what the Prime Minister feels he has to do for
his security purposes.
We still believe that it would have been better for Chairman Arafat to
attend the summit, and not put a damper on the summit when the summit
had the possibility of coming forward with a positive statement with
respect to normal relations, creating normal relations between Israel
and all of its Arab neighbors.
Nevertheless, we will continue to press ahead, and we'll continue to
make our opinions known to Chairman Arafat, as well as to Prime
Minister Sharon. The events of today, though -- the event of today, I
should say -- once again I think causes us to turn to Chairman Arafat
and causes us to pressure him even more, to take action to bring this
kind of violence under control. He can do more. He can speak out more
loudly with respect to these kinds of incidents. He can talk to his
people and tell them that this does not lead to a Palestinian state;
it leads to disaster. They will not succeed in destroying Israel or
pushing Israel into the Mediterranean Ocean, and he needs to lead them
to a path of peace and down that path of peace.
And so he needs to do more, and we will continue to apply pressure on
him to do more. And at the same time we'll continue to talk to the
Israelis to make sure that they remain committed, as they have said
they are, to the Tenet work plan and to the Mitchell peace process.
MS. HANSEN: What kind of pressure can you put on the Palestinians?
SECRETARY POWELL: Well, we can put on a great deal of pressure. I
think the Palestinians want to have American favor. They want to be
seen as moving toward peace. There are a variety of incentives that
come from their standing in the international community, and we have
something to say about their standing. The European Union provides a
great deal of financial support. We provide support to various
organizations within the West Bank and Gaza that provides support to
the Palestinian people.
And so it's principally political, diplomatic and economic efforts
that we can take to persuade Chairman Arafat that he has to continue
to move in this direction. The biggest thing we have, though, is he
has a vision for a Palestinian state. We have said to him that we
share that vision. We succeeded two weeks ago in the United Nations at
getting a resolution passed, led by the United States, that passed
14-0, with one abstention by Syria, that essentially put the whole
international community on record for that Palestinian state.
So there are things we can do that will assist Chairman Arafat in
achieving his goal for a Palestinian state, but at the same time we
have to tell him we cannot achieve that goal with these kinds of
activities. He can't control every suicide bomber, but we believe he
can do a lot more with respect to speaking out to his people,
condemning this kind of activity, and controlling those organizations
that are under his control.
MS. HANSEN: Let's shift gears, with your permission, to Afghanistan.
What are your realistic expectations for a stable government there?
SECRETARY POWELL: Well, I think we're off to a pretty good start. In
just a few months, Chairman Karzai has put together an interim
administration, building from absolutely nothing, and we threw out a
corrupt regime that had done nothing but destroy the country. And so I
think we've had some success in the first several months, but there is
a long way to go. They need to put in every instrument of government
you can imagine, from a communications system, to a finance system, to
a security system. They need a national police force. They need a
national army.
So there is a lot of work to be done. And we also have to make sure
it's done in a secure environment. That is why General Franks and the
American and other coalition forces are hard at work making sure that
al-Qaida and the Taliban do not come back, and that is why we are
beginning the training of a national Afghan army. So even though he
has a great number of problems in front of him, I think we should also
give him credit and give ourselves credit for the success that we have
enjoyed in the first several months of this new administration.
MS. HANSEN: What do you envision as the short-term role in Afghanistan
for the United States?
SECRETARY POWELL: Our role in the short and the long term is: first,
in the short term, continue to rout out al-Qaida and Taliban elements,
and that is what General Franks is concentrating on; in the medium
term, help train an Afghan army; and, in the long term, support that
army, support this interim administration and the administration that
will follow, and make sure we are in there for the long term with
respect to reconstruction efforts and humanitarian efforts.
MS. HANSEN: Military support as well?
SECRETARY POWELL: Military support in the sense of making sure that we
don't leave before we've truly destroyed al-Qaida and the Taliban
remaining elements. They are no longer in power, but they do have the
ability to cause difficulty throughout the countryside, and our
presence helps give security to the outlying areas outside Kabul.
Support the International Security Assistance Force that's there. We
help by paying. We help by supporting them in terms of the
intelligence and command and control, and helping the Afghan
administration create a national army so that ultimately they can
provide for their own security, and a national police force to help do
the same thing.
MS. HANSEN: In terms of the security of the United States, and
certainly other nations in the globe, the United States is extending
the reach of its -- what I guess we could call its anti-terror network
-- operations in Yemen, the Philippines. But yet there are still
warnings over the weekend in Italy, and it seems as though the
infrastructure of the terrorist organization is still kind of elusive.
Is there a point of diminishing returns? I mean, you know the old saw,
"Nothing is happening so we must be doing our job."
SECRETARY POWELL: Well, I know the old saw. What the President said
from the very beginning that talks to this directly is that this is
not a campaign that will be finished in a week or a month, or perhaps
even a year; it may take many years. We may never be finished, not in
our lifetime, as long as there are people out there who are willing to
kill innocent people to pursue their objectives.
But we are doing a good job in identifying these networks, slowly
going after them, going after their financial infrastructure, better
law enforcement cooperation. And the fact that we have governments in
Yemen, the Philippines and other places that recognize the danger and
want us to help them train themselves to deal with this danger is an
encouraging sign.
So the President like to say we've got them on the run and we're going
to keep after them. But to think that we would be able to pull up the
entire international infrastructure of terrorism in a few months time
was not a reasonable assumption. And the President knew it, and that's
why he committed the nation for a long haul in order to defeat
terrorism.
MS. HANSEN: I'd like to move on to the subject of Iraq, if I may.
There were divisions that seemed to appear early on within the
administration on the wisdom of taking some kind of military action in
Iraq. To what extent do those divisions persist?
SECRETARY POWELL: I don't know that I would call them divisions, as
much as I would call them differences of opinion. There's differences
of opinion that should exist in any healthy administration, but they
were resolved quickly. We decided early on, by the third week in
September, within a few days after the events of 11 September, that
our initial focus would be in Afghanistan, and we all understood that
and we've all stood squarely behind the President as we have pursued
that objective.
We always knew, though, that there would be other challenges in other
countries we had to keep an eye on and make a judgment as to what we
would do about in due course. Iraq certainly is one of those, and the
President has asked us to continue examining options. My principal
focus at work has been the sanctions regime and making sure that
remains tight, and improving it and modifying it so Iraq cannot claim
that we are denying humanitarian supplies to the people of Iraq, and
keep our sanctions focused on weapons of mass destruction.
We are also examining what other options may be available to change
this evil regime. The President clearly identified the Iraqi regime as
evil. They gassed their own people. They are developing weapons of
mass destruction. It is the United States that saved a Muslim nation,
Kuwait, from invasion by another Muslim nation, Iraq.
And so the President continues to examine those options, and we do
that for him. And in due course I am sure we will provide
recommendations, but nobody should think those recommendations are
heading to his desk right now or that we're busy fighting with each
other. We're trying to find the right answer, and these discussions
continue on in an intensive basis within the administration.
MS. HANSEN: Sir, you served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
and you now serve as Secretary of State. What's the difference for
you? What adjustments have you had to make when essentially you are
meeting the same people but wearing a different uniform?
SECRETARY POWELL: Well, I have a different job now. When I was
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, it was my job to formulate
military options and to give the President and the Vice President and
Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense the best military advice I
could based on my 30-plus years of military experience. But now I'm
the chief diplomat of the United States and it is my job to give those
same individuals the best diplomatic and political advice that I can.
And it's a different job in that I'm out there forming coalitions; I
am dealing with trade problems, economic problems; I'm dealing with
very, very complex problems such as those we find in the Middle East
today. And I have to just go about it a different way and remind
myself constantly that I'm no longer a soldier. I have to build
coalitions, I have to find compromises, I have to listen intently to
the views of others, and I have to accommodate the domestic political
needs of other heads of state and government and try to reconcile them
with our domestic political needs and our international objectives.
And so it's quite a different set of problems.
I did many of the same things when I was the Chairman, listening to
others and trying to understand their points of view. The big
difference is when I was Chairman I could give an order at the end of
the day; here I can't quite do that. I have to build consensus,
consensus that will the American foreign policy as laid out by the
President in the name of the American people. So it's in some ways
quite the same and in some ways very, very different.
MS. HANSEN: Secretary Powell, thank you.
SECRETARY POWELL: You're quite welcome. Thank you.
MS. HANSEN: Colin Powell is the US Secretary of State. We appreciate
your time.
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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